Lawrence Clavering Part 4

"When did the carriage come?"

"This morning."

"And monsieur?"

"He is within, I think."

I ran up the steps into the house and fell plump against a girl who was carrying some gla.s.ses and a jug upon a tray. She gave a little scream; the tray struck me on the chest; there was jingle of broken gla.s.s, and a jugful of claret was streaming down my breeches and soaking about my knees.

"Monsieur is in?" I asked.

"Stupid!" she said, with a stamp of the foot.

"Monsieur is in?" I asked again.

"b.o.o.by," says she, and caught me a swinging box on the ears.

"I beg your pardon," said I, and I ran up the stairs. A footman stood beside the door on the landing, and I knew the man.

"Ah," said I, "he is here."

The footman advanced a step towards me.

"My lord is busy."

"He will see me."

"I have the strictest orders, sir."

I pushed past the fellow and hammered at the door. It was thrown open from the inside, and Lord Bolingbroke stood anxiously in the door.

"Good morning," said I, airily. "It is a roundabout journey, this of yours to Dauphine;" and while he stared and frowned at me I stepped past him into the room. In the window opposite there stood a man with his back towards me--a man of a slender and graceful figure, plainly dressed in a suit of black velvet. He turned hastily as I stumbled across the threshold, and in a twinkling I knew what I had done. There was no mistaking the long, melancholic features, the gentle aspect of long-suffering. His race was figured in the mould of his lineaments, and the sad history of his race was written in his eyes.

I dropped upon my knees.

"Your Majesty," I stammered out; and again, "your Majesty."

He took a step eagerly towards me. I felt the claret trickling down my legs.

"You bring pressing news," he exclaimed; and then he checked himself and his voice dropped to despondency. "But it will be bad news. Not a doubt of that! 'Tis always bad news that comes in such hurry;" and he turned to Bolingbroke with the saddest laugh. "Bad news, my lord, I'll warrant."

"Nay, your Majesty," I answered, "I bring no news at all;" and I glanced helplessly at Bolingbroke, who, having closed the door, now stood on one side, midway between King James and myself. How I envied him his easy bearing! And envying him thus I became the more confused.

"It is a kinsman of mine," he said, in some perplexity--"Mr. Lawrence Clavering, and a devoted servant of your Majesty."

"A kinsman of yours," said the King, affably. "That makes him doubly welcome."

And then the most ridiculous thing occurred, though I perceived nothing of its humour at the time. For of a sudden the King gave a start.

"He is wounded, my lord," he cries. "He shall have my surgeon to attend to him. Tell Edgar; he is below. Bid him hurry!" and he came a little nearer towards me, as though with his own hands he would help me to rise. "You were hurt on your journey hither. How long--how long must blood be the price of loyalty to me and mine?"

The poignant sadness of his voice redoubled my confusion.

"Quick!" cried the King. "The poor lad will swoon." And, indeed, I was very near to swooning, but it was from sheer humiliation. I glanced about me, wishing the floor would open. But it was the door that opened, and Lord Bolingbroke opened it. I jumped to my feet to stop him.

"Your Majesty," I exclaimed, "it is no wound I would to my soul that it were!"

"No wound!" said the King, drawing back and bending his brows at me in a frown.

"What is it, then, Lawrence?" asked Bolingbroke as he closed the door.

I looked down at my white buckskin breeches, with the red patches spreading over them.

"It is," said I, "a jugful of claret."

No one spoke for a little, and I noticed the King's face grew yet sterner and more cold. He was, in fact, like so many men of a reserved disposition, very sensitive to the least hint of ridicule upon all occasions, and particularly so when he had been betrayed into the expression of any feeling.

"Your Majesty," I faltered out ruefully, "the Rector of the Jesuit College in Paris warned me before I set out, of the dangers which spring from overmuch zeal, and this is the second proof of his wisdom that I have had to-day. For now I have offended your Majesty by stumbling impertinently into your presence; and before, the maid boxed my ears in the pa.s.sage for upsetting her claret."

The speech was lucky enough to win my pardon. For Bolingbroke began to laugh, and in a moment or two the King's face relaxed, and he joined in with him.

"But we have yet to know," said he, "the reason of your haste."

I explained how that, having come into an inheritance, I had ridden off to Bar-le-Duc, to put it at his disposal, and from Bar-le-Duc to Commercy; and how, on the sight of Lord Bolingbroke's carriage in the courtyard, I had rushed into his presence, without a thought that he might be closeted with the King. I noticed that at the mention of Blackladies the King and Bolingbroke exchanged a glance. But neither interrupted me in my explanation.

"You give me, at all events, a proof of your devotion to your kinsman," said the King; "and I am fain to take that as a guarantee that you are no less devoted to myself."

"Nay," interposed Lord Bolingbroke; "your Majesty credits me with what belongs to yourself. For I doubt if Lawrence would have shown such eagerness for my company had he found me in the Dauphine instead of in Lorraine."

The King nodded abstractedly, and sat him down at the table, which was littered over with papers, and finally seized upon a couple of letters, which he read through, comparing them one with the other.

"You can give me, then, information concerning c.u.mberland," he said, changing to a tone sharp and precise; and he proceeded to put to me a question or two concerning the numbers of his adherents and the strength of their adhesion.

"Your Majesty," I replied, "my news is all hearsay. For this inheritance has come to me unexpected and unsought The last year I have lived in Paris."

He drummed with his fingers upon the table, like one disappointed.

"You know nothing, then, of the county?"

"I have never so much as set foot in it. I was born in Shropshire."

"Then, your Majesty," Lord Bolingbroke interrupted, "neither is he known there. There is an advantage in that which counterbalances his lack of information."

The King raised his eyes to my face, and looked at me doubtfully, with a pinching of the lips.

"He is young for the business," he said, "and one may perhaps think"--he smiled as he added the word--"precipitate."

My hopes, which had risen with a bound at the hint that some special service might be required of me, sank like a pebble in a pool. I cudgelled my brains for some excuse, my recollections for some achievement, however slight, which might outweigh my indiscretion. But I had not a single deed to my name: and what excuse could acquit me of a hot-headed thoughtlessness? I remained perforce silent and abashed; and it was in every way fortunate that I did, for my Lord Bolingbroke tactfully put forward the one argument that could serve my turn. Said he quite simply--